The endless handrail of the escalator is manufactured from a belt-like product preformed in whole by extrusion molding. The belt-like product is cut into a length according to a customer's spec and then joined in a loop. Thus, the endless handrail has a joint section. The endless handrail is made up of a composite material (canvas, thermoplastic resin, etc.). The cut ends of the endless handrail are joined by remelting the thermoplastic resin member. In order to ensure strength of the joint section of the endless handrail and to protect the joined edges on the back side of the endless handrail, a patch cloth is ordinarily bonded to the canvas surface in the joint section.
If a rectangular patch cloth is bonded to the back side of the endless handrail so as to cover an entire canvas surface of the joint section, the stiffness of the joint section of the handrail becomes extremely higher compared to that of the base body portion of the handrail. Since a local stiffness change thereby occurs at a bonding interface of the patch cloth, stress concentrates locally at the bonding interface of the patch cloth when the endless handrail is bent. As a result, separation of the patch cloth occurs in the joint section of the handrail, and a crack and breakage begin to grow in the handrail itself from the separation point.
There are disclosed many contrivances that target extending the life of the joint section of an endless handrail. Among them, an endless belt has been known that has a belt structure in which both ends of the belt base member are butt-joined. Both ends of the belt base member are cut diagonally with respect to the longitudinal direction of the belt. These diagonal ends are characterized in that they have rounded acute angle edges (for example, Patent Document 1).